


Hunter's Call

by Venatosapiens



Category: Hades (Video Game 2018)
Genre: Artemis is anxious, Awkward Romance, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Cousin Incest, F/M, Fluff and Smut, House Party, Light Angst, Light BDSM, Long-Distance Relationship, Meg is a top, Polyamory Negotiations, Post-Canon, Rare Pairings, References to Ancient Greek Religion & Lore, Talking about feelings is sexy, Virginity, Zagreus is doing his best, bisexual Artemis, spoilers for Hades secret ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:41:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27191881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Venatosapiens/pseuds/Venatosapiens
Summary: He's run through hell a hundred times, an arrow keepsake at his breast, and Artemis has taken notice. It turns out they've got a lot in common: they both like hunting. They've both got girlfriends. And they both really want to see each other in person.Because while distance fosters a certain kind of intimacy, there's really no substitute for meeting face to face...
Relationships: Artemis/Zagreus (Hades Video Game), Megaera & Zagreus (Hades Video Game)
Comments: 24
Kudos: 84





	Hunter's Call

She was hunting on the slopes when she heard him call. It came to her faintly, through the wind in the branches, the grass, the dirt and rock, up from some deep and fathomless darkness. Faintly enough that she might have missed it. But the hunt-goddess is always listening. No sooner had she heard his voice—“Artemis!”— then she spun, drawing back the bowstring, closed her eyes, snarled a confirmation. Fired—

And for just a moment she saw it: a horrific accumulation of skulls and stones, drifting over a cold stone floor somewhere in the great realms of the dead, beams of sickly purple light searing the darkness, rending it open like a knife through gut. A terrible hoarse whisper on the air. But she saw him too, almost; a dark lithe shape, dancing between the beams, sword flashing. And then her arrow was there, slamming into the horrid thing. It shattered. The growl cut out. For a moment the darkness lifted, and two mismatched eyes met hers, staring out of a flushed, angular face.

And she was back on the hill side, her breath caught in her throat. The bow did not tremble in her hands, because the hands of the hunt-goddess cannot tremble. She swallowed and closed her eyes a moment, before reaching it behind her to select another arrow. The birds perching on her antlers rustled as her arm moved.  
  
“That’s the fourth arrow you’ve wasted on him today,” Callisto said beside her. “Did you see him this time, at least?” 

“Just his eyes,” Artemis said. “I only ever get to see his eyes.”  
  
Beside her, a cool wind rustled the leaflitter. A brief flare of light sketched a circle on the ground before fizzling out, leaving a little glass cask of nectar in the dirt. His voice whispered in her ear. She slapped a hand down, holding the connection in place for as long as she could. "You're being very nice to me,” she told the nectar, her voice coming out in a rush. “And that makes me suspicious, understand? So you want more of that, you… keep this up."

Beside her, nut-brown Callisto yawned. “I’m sorry, Huntress, but the deer—” 

“The deer,” Artemis said, and gave a little shake, like a dog throwing water off its coat. She wiped sweat and green hair away from her eyes. “Right. Come on, love.” On they went together, on the prowl. 

And all the time, she listened. 

*

That was before. Now deep in the House of Hades, the torches are burning high in their sconces, and the smoke smells like a garden in bloom. The light spreads in bright waves along the cool stone floor, rendering the clustered shades mere resentful shimmers in the air. The austere and darkened halls have been swept and spit-shined, and the gold set in the black walls sparkles like frozen lightning. A strange sound echoes through the court of the dead, spilling out the windows and down into the black depths of Tartarus, such that the wretched souls shiver and pace in their cold labyrinths, groaning with confusion.  
  
It is the sound of merriment.

“That’s it, Dionysus, pour it back, pour it back mate—” 

“Ha! You’d try to drink the very god of the seas beneath the table? Don’t think your uncle’s going easy on you! On either of you!”

“Come on mate, you’re the _literal_ god of wine, you can do it—” 

Dionysus holds up a finger, his throat gulping. He slams the goblet down, twirls a grape from his ringlets, crushes it between his fingers. Amber liquid wells back up inside his empty goblet. “Zag, mate, my man, if you weren’t my best pal I’d be insulted. Sorry Uncle, my throat’s still a little dry, you won’t mind I have another, yeah? Here, let me top you up as well—” 

Zagreus grins, claps the revel-god on the shoulder. Most of the Olympians are crowded into the lounge, reclining or leaning against the walls, shouting to make themselves heard over the din. Ares and Aphrodite are draped over one another in the corner, her hand idly playing beneath his Lacedaemonian kilt. Hypnos and Hermes are exchanging jokes over a bit of Elysian Ambrosia. His father towers over ice-browed Demeter, the two talking in low, urgent tones. He feels a slight chill until he realizes that the old goddess is smiling a wry, sad smile. His mother catches his eye and gives him a hopeful look. 

Going as well as can be expected, then. He pads out of the lounge, the heat of bodies backed into close quarters falling away, the chill of the house brisk on his bare skin. Athena and a few other Olympians are wandering the halls, examining the riches set on plinth and mosaic with undisguised interest. None have ever stepped foot in the underworld before, and before now, none of them would have been welcome. Repairing that rift has cost Zagreus a thousand deaths, a thousand rolling trips through the bloody waters of old River Styx, and this party is the first stitch in seeing it mended. He has been on tenterhooks all—day? night? — ever since the first of his extended family arrived in his mother’s pomegranate garden, stealing in through the dark, her green hair coiled around her antlers, eyes watchful…

She’s standing by the steps of the pool of Styx, staring into the water. She looks over her shoulder at him as he comes around the bend, and her eyes are as deep and dark as the river.

*

She was standing on a streambank back when that first circle of light deposited the first bit of nectar by her feet.The birds perching on her bow cheeped and fluttered in surprise, and she shushed them with a motion, staring at the amber liquid. She had only exchanged a few words with the new cousin down in the Underworld, given him a bit of power, a bit of help. And this—well. For her ‘kindness and support?’ She picked it up, fumbled in her pocket. “Hey, thank you for this, really,” she said, a little flustered. The old flint arrowhead drew a touch of ichor from her split thumb as she touched it. Sharp enough. For a moment she paused, wondering if she was going to go through with it. A keepsake like this, well, she’d have to take an interest if he kept it on him. What if he talked too much? What if he wanted too much? She didn’t even know what he looked like, exactly…

But she was the hunt-goddess, the virgin moon. And she liked the sound of his voice, the drawl of it, like banked coals on a campfire. So she pressed the arrowhead to the loam, and sent it down, down through the subsoil and the rock and the bedrock. Down into the dark. “I’ve just the thing to offer in return,” she said, voice casual. “It's just a gift, OK?"

She knew hers was not the only keepsake he carried. He was the talk of Olympus, their unexpected nephew—some of the family tripped over themselves to fill him with power, hooting at his exploits, casting pieces of themselves down at him so that the halls of Hades must be littered with Olympian knicknacks. But she noticed when he wore hers, and it seemed he wore it often. She smiled sometimes, to think of that vague, lean shape running through the dark, battling all the horrors of Erebus, a piece of her nestled against his chest. 

Her skin tingled as she waited out in the wild forest for his call. 

  
  


*

Zagreus had not expected her to be the first to appear. He’d just seen Megaera and her sisters off on their rounds, kissing the First of the Furies on the cheek to an accompaniment of rolled eyes and snarling from Alecto. His mother had tasked him with welcoming the gods to the House of Hades. “You’ve been the most in contact with them of late,” Persephone had said. “So you’ll be a friendly face.”  
  
So he’d stood there in his best chiton, the dogs skulls on his shoulder shined up, hand behind his back and feeling like an idiot. He’d been bracing himself for Zeus, a blare of pipes, thunder-drums announcing the Sky-King’s presence; the compact, lean figure stepping out of the garden shadows had been a surprise. He’d been more surprised still at the way she stepped up to him, standing close and examining him with focused intent, up and down and around. 

She looked like the visions she’d sent his way on the underworld roads: the fur-lined stole, the great silver crescent moon on her brow, and the other on her breast. Maybe a bit shorter than he’d been expecting. And a whiff of something in the air he couldn’t identify, something like the brief scent of the forests up top. “Hi, Art—” he’d said, and coughed. Remembered his manners. “Lady Artemis, rather. ...Hello.” 

“Hi, Zagreus,” she’d said, still staring at him. Like she was marking distance on a difficult shot? Trying to pick out motion in the brush? Something was going on behind her eyes, and he couldn’t quite read it; couldn’t quite see beyond the mere fact of her presence, here in his father’s halls. But even as she opened her mouth, a crackle of golden lightning roared behind her, the thunder-lord announcing his arrival. She rolled her eyes. “See you inside? I can’t wait to hear what this is all about.” 

“Sure.” As she darted by him, he’d imagined that he saw the ghost of a smile touch her mouth. 

He kept feeling her eyes on him after that. Not the whole party, true. She’d run right up to where Achilles stood guard, her face lighting up, her body language loosening as she peppered him with questions. And then the moment amid the revelry when his father had gaveled his fist against the table and his mother had called for silence, and then they stood and told their tale, how the lord of the dead and the goddess of growing things had fallen in love and eloped, secreting themselves down in the dark, cutting themselves off from their family. Until their flame-footed son Zagreus sought help from Olympus, seemingly to escape, but in truth seeking to bring them all back together— 

Artemis’s eyes had widened at that, and then narrowed. And then she’d looked away from him, pointedly, even as a babble of excited discussion broke out among the rest of the family. When ever he looked at her after that, she was looking away. But he had that prickle on his neck still, drinking with Dionysus, bantering with Hermes. Green eyes on his back. Tracking his movements back and forth across the lounge from her spot in the corner. Finally Poseidon bellied up to the bar across from Dionysus and demanded in a sea-sized drink in ringing tones, and when next he looked up, she was gone. 

Now she stiffens a bit as he approaches, the bloody waters of the Styx gate foaming and fountaining behind her head. She looks very out of place here, Zagreus can’t help thinking. She brings moonlight to the black veils of Nyx’s creation, sure, but she’s a wilderness goddess at heart. He wonders for a moment what she looks like up top. Slipping through the tree trunks. Her tunic shifting over her thighs— 

“Prince,” she says. She’s examining him again, but warily now, like she doesn’t quite know what to make of him. 

“My lady. Are you enjoying the party?”

“It’s… a party. I’d rather be out with Callisto and the nymphs. Not trapped in there with them.”

“Is it always like this, up there?”

“Are you interested?” Artemis’ voice is flat. “Really interested? It doesn’t sound like you were actually planning to find out.” 

The words sting rather more than he’s expecting, and he finds himself stammering. “I…well. I had to…” He closes his eyes a moment, thinks. Opens them. “My lady. I had something I had to do. A wrong I needed to fix. A great many wrongs, really.” 

“Is that right?” She crosses her arms. 

“The underworld is full of the blasted things.” Zagreus’ lip quirks. “Can’t escape without tripping over them. And it seems I… might have created a few more. Lady, you all have been so kind with your help. I led everyone on about Mount Olympus being my goal, yes. But this is where I wanted everyone. I wanted you all to come down here. I wanted things to be mended.”

She considers that in silence, looking away, her hip cocked in unconscious thought. He stares at the sharp angle of her jawline, her tightened lips. His heart is hammering. "I thought we had an understanding, Zagreus,” she says softly. “I really did. I told Callisto about you. My cousin, battling up from the underworld to see...us. Was I wrong about that? This wouldn't be the first time I was wrong about someone."

His mouth opens and closes. Slowly, he sinks down to one knee in front of her. “Moon-goddess. Divine arrow. May I apologize?”

She snorts, low under her breath. “You can try, Prince. But titles aren’t the way to do it.” 

“Force of habit,” he says, and keeps his head bowed. “Artemis...I misled you about Olympus, and that was an abuse of your trust. But forging an understanding with you has been the greatest blessing I can imagine. There was nothing I wanted more than to finally meet you and thank you for all your help. I can only humbly beg your forgiveness.”

“I’m not a forgiving god,” she says. But she’s meeting his eyes again at least, studying him, chewing her lip in thought. “You never chose against me in the trials, so I guess you wouldn’t know, but my loyalty's hard-won and quickly lost. Don’t be messing with my feelings, Zagreus. Do you understand me?”

He meets her eyes and holds them. “I do, my lady.” 

She sighs. Beneath her furred stole, her shoulders drop, a kind of tension draining out of her, and she looks away from him again, running an awkward hand through her hair. Up close, the color strikes him, even in the gloom—bright, like sunlight through the leaves in his mother’s garden. A shining, warm green unlike anything else in Hades. 

“Oh, get up, Zagreus,” Artemis says. “Listen, try and get me back in that lounge and I _will_ do something really horrible to you. But show me that fancy bow of yours and maybe I’ll have mercy.” 

Zagreus bounds up, grinning. “If you’ll follow me?”

*

“What is it with you and the hunt-goddess?” 

Megaera lay beside him, her wing folded with unexpected daintiness over her long body. He’d killed her as usual on the run out of Tartarus, dancing between the blows of her whip and the screeching attacks of her sisters, broken her body, shaken the hot blood from his hands and run on, leaving her to sink into the Styx. When he himself eventually climbed from the warm waters of the Styx Gate—a goat, of all things, had knocked him off a cliff—she’d been waiting in the lounge. As usual. Now she ran a gentle finger over the scourge marks she’d left on his shoulders, smirking at the hiss of his breath as her fingers probed the wounds. 

“Me and Artemis?” Zagreus shrugged in the bed, wrapped his arm tighter around the Fury’s frame. “I dunno, Meg. The rest of them are always so... _pompous_ in the messages they send. Gods, you should hear Zeus and Poseidon go on. Athena and Dionysus are all right, mind, but Artemis—she’s focused.” 

“You do like that in a woman,” Megaera said. She nipped his ear, trailed her other hand down his chest. “The scars I leave on you never stay, Zagreus. The Styx always washes them off, and you climb out all pale and whole.” A low growl twined through her voice. “It’s...frustrating. But let’s be real with one another, Zag. We’ve been killing one another out there at the Tartarus gate for a while now—”

“Well, I’ve been killing you, certainly—Ow! Ngnn. Oh, gods, Meg.”

She withdrew her hand from the lash mark on his thigh, red blood staining her blue finger tips. “Zagreus,” she said mildly. 

“My...lady.” 

“Good boy. Listen. We’ve been killing one another for a while now. You’ve gotten strong and you’ve gotten gods-damned fast, I won’t deny it. But a girl can’t help but notice when you call on the same goddess in most every fight. I’ve felt that damn arrow go into my gut more times than I can count.” Her voice lowered. “It _hurts,_ Zag. So I want us to be clear with one another. Do you want her?” 

He lay there beside her, frozen, feeling the touch of her hands roaming across his marble body, trying to think of what to say. Did he want Artemis? He respected her, certainly. Enjoyed the messages he got from her, found her aid invaluable. Always saved a bit of nectar to send her way. 

Rather like, if he was being honest with himself, he’d set aside quite a bit of nectar for Megaera herself, back when they were still...working out an understanding. He thought about the little thrill he felt, sending the nectar topside, waiting to hear her reply. The way her voice sounded in his head, the twining ivy-rush of her power flowing through him. “Drat. Yeah, Meg. I think I do, a bit. Sorry.” 

Megaera was quiet beside him for a long time. He let her be, his arm around her shoulder, reassuring her with his touch. Finally she stirred. 

“You’re an idiot, Prince. But I knew this about you. I don’t… mind, exactly. Even though it hurts.” The hand on his thigh grabbed his cock and squeezed it, the pressure slow and inexorable as the weight of a mountain, and his gasp raised gooseflesh on the skin of her breast. “A lot of what we do to each other hurts. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t...nice, too. Look. If we’re making this work, it’s got to be you and me, for keeps. But we both know that you’re never going up to Olympus, Zagreus. So I don’t see the harm in you wanting her, I guess.” Her voice turns teasing. “I’ll just have to try harder to kill you when I see you wearing her arrow.”

“Meg—” Zagreus says. “What if...you know my mother’s plan. She’s coming here. For the party.” 

“I know,” Megaera said. She rolled over suddenly, pinning him in place on the bed, and above her the wing extended, high and clawed, catching the light of the torches through its membranous skin. Her hips began to move on his, slow and circling and predatory. “She’ll come. But she can’t stay. If you want her, go and have her. Just remember—” her breath rasped and a hand shot out to hold his throat. “Just remember—who—holds your leash— _Zagreus_ —”

*

“Zagreus,” Artemis says. “Is this really it? Coronacht the heart-seeker?” 

They’re standing in the courtyard of the House of Hades, deep in the cool, dark depths of Tartarus. Strange and savage weapons float in their places between the pillars, dribbles and rivulets of old blood dancing around blades and shafts and shields. Torches burn in silent, dancing bubbles of ghostlight.

“Hey, it’s a goddess!” A living skeleton slouches in the middle of the floor, bony knuckles rattling and clicking as it speaks. “Don’t see too many’a dose around here. Come on, toots, hit me.”

“Quiet, Skelly,” Zagreus says. He picks up the bow and passes it over. She accepts it, her fingers thrilling at the immortal weapon’s weight. It _sings_ to her, this bow, the weavings of time and fate harmonizing with Titans’ blood, multiplying choruses of reality thrumming and shivering up her arms. 

“My,” she says.

“You feel it?” Zagreus says, stepping up beside her. “Go ahead and try it on Skelly, he won’t mind.”

“I will not, girlie. Now, it’s got a strong draw—”

Artemis draws the bow, fast, the movement swift and snapping. Sights. Releases. The air splits, the song a whine from some distant, different world, and a crackle of humming light lances out, strikes the skeleton standing in the middle of the yard. It disappears in a shatter of splintering bone.

“Well, that’s what you get for telling the Huntress her business.” Zagreus voice is rueful. “How does it feel?” 

“I think this must be what my brother feels like with that lyre of his.” Artemis draws the bow again, crouches, and snaps off another few shots. “Music in my hands, Zagreus. Gods, this thing is lovely. What a bow!” 

“I’d lend it out if I could. But I think Father would fully lose his mind if I did.” Zagreus leans against a pillar, his hands tucked in his skull belt, a broad expanse of white chest showing from his black and red tunic. “Everything alright?”

She’s looking at him again, Artemis realizes. It’s just so strange to _see_ him, without night’s veil shrouding his every movement. That’s why she’s been studying him so carefully, trying to capture all of the details—not just the smoldering feet, not just those eyes, but his lazy smile, the curve of his neck where it meets his jaw and collarbone, the loping way he bounced from table to table at the feast. Talking to others seems to come so easily to him. Like another hunter from long ago, limber and fast, whose body now belts the stars...

But he was mortal, wasn’t he? Zagreus isn’t. And her brother has no power here. Not in the realms of the dead. Not really. 

The blush burns across her face. She covers it by sending another shot hurtling out, through the eyehole of the skeleton rematerializing in the center of the courtyard. Bone and ash patter to the floor. “You’re seeing the Fury, aren’t you?” she says quickly. “Aphrodite wouldn’t shut up about it. Thinks it’s just the funniest thing, for some reason. I don’t know.” 

“Ah. Yes,” Zagreus says. And now he’s blushing too, a faint bit of color in his pale cheeks. His throat bobs a bit as he swallows. “I have to get past her every time I get out, and we sort of...worked something out, I guess. We’ve known each other a long time.” 

“I guess you underworld types would.” She half-draws Coronacht, sighting down it. Why is her heart racing? She’s just standing here, holding the most powerful bow in all the worlds, in the same room as Zagreus, _talking_ to Zagreus, not exchanging messages through the rock layers, not sitting in the meadows, listening for his call. But now it feels like they’re both pacing on the edge of a cliffside somehow, each putting a careful foot down, one in front of the other. 

“How are things with Callisto?” Zagreus eyes’ glint like gemstones in the dark.

“Oh, you know.” Artemis fidgets with the bow, plucking a little tune on the bowstring. She does not want to talk about Callisto right now, nut-brown Callisto with her broad shoulders and black mane. Not with Zagreus. It was different when she did it before, pouring herself out into missives, sending them below with offers of power. It was different before she asked about the Fury. Why, oh why did she ask about the Fury? “She’s...Callisto. We hunt together. All the time, really. We—look, be straight with me, are you really asking me about Callisto?” 

“No,” he says, meeting her gaze and holding it. “I’m not. Were you really asking about Megaera?”

Her tongue is thick in her mouth. “Do you love her?”

“Yes,” Zagreus says. “But...I think you can love a lot of people. Do you love Callisto?”

“Yes,” she says. Is that a stupid thing to say? Gods, her heart is trying to claw its way out of her chest. They’re just having a perfectly normal conversation, here in the courtyard of the House of Hades, with its talking skeleton and weapons of reality-bending power, discussing their lovers. On their way to discussing...something else. “But I—”

“That reminds me, my Lady Artemis,” Zagreus says. He’s up off the wall now, stepping a bit closer, holding himself in a casual stance. She automatically notes the shift of weight in his narrow hips, the lightness on his feet. “There was something you wanted to ask me once, before Aphrodite interrupted. ‘Don’t take this the wrong way,’ you said. I’d been wondering what it was.”

"Ugh. That. That was nothing.”

“Was it?” He cocks his head, his expression open. “I’d be lying if I said I haven’t been thinking about it. And I don’t want to lie to you.” 

“Again.”

“Again,” he agrees. 

She puts another arrow into the capering skeleton while she finds her voice, letting the thunder of splitting creation wash out the rest of the sound from the courtyard. The torchlight gutters between the pillars.  
  
“I don’t really know what I was going to ask you,” she mutters. “Probably if you wanted to go… hunting with me? But we’ve gone hunting together loads of times. Sort of. You down there, me up here—no, I mean—you know what I mean—”

“Look,” he says. The words tumble out, like he’s been holding them back. “I’m just going to say it, Artemis. I’ve been thinking about you every run I make. Every time I try and reach topside. I know Callisto’s up there. Megaera’s down here. We both have… people. I can’t survive up top for long enough to visit, and you have no business that brings you here. I needed the whole family to come down here so we could make peace, yes. But I wanted _you_ to come down here. So I could see you.”

“Zagreus—”

“Please,” he says. “It’s just…you’re my favorite cousin, and the finest hunter in Olympus. And if that’s all this is, then that’s fine. Really, it is. We can leave it at that. If that’s what you want.” 

She’s careening now, her heart plummeting, bees and butterflies bouncing around inside her, the cliffside tumbling under her feet. The hands of the hunt-goddess do not shake. The hands of the hunt-goddess do not shake. The hands of the hunt-goddess do not shake...

“You know girlie,” the skeleton says. “Fun as you wailing on me is, real nice, good change of pace, yous guys dancing around this is killing me. Ha! Just my little joke. Why don’t you just—” 

She draws Coronacht and whirls, the air humming, the cord and chord snapping out in unison. Again the skeleton is gone with a cackle of delighted laughter and a tumble of ash. Zagreus has not stopped looking into her eyes.

In the silence, she carefully, reverentially sets the bow down. 

“You want to know what I want?” she says. “Really?”

*

_“_ Hey,” she whispered once toward the beginning, the snow pelting her face, melting on her lips. Her birds huddled beneath her stole, little balls of warmth against her skin. She closed her eyes and exhaled, drawing on her power and concentrating on gemstone eyes, reshaping the world just a little bit—just enough so that his arm and eye would be true, and his every blow would find its mark. The best she could offer him, down in the black void of Hades. “You’re not alone down there, ok? Here. Let me show you…” 

*

She’s on him the moment they’re back in Zagreus bedroom, going up on her tiptoes, her strong little hands pulling his head down to meet her lips. The taste of her takes Zagreus’ breath away, clear and sweet, and he scoops her up, stumbling for the bed. 

He never makes it. He half-trips against a discarded tunic on the floor, slams into the wall beneath a poster of Dionysus. She grunts, her lips never leaving his, her arms twining around his neck, her thighs squeezing his hips. A gasp as she breaks away, her face flushed. The crescent diadems on her brow and chest are shining with soft silver moonlight, reflecting off her antlers. 

“That’s new,” he says.

“It’s just—” she shakes her head. He kisses her again, quickly, holding her up, kisses her cheek, her neck. She purrs as his lips find the hollow of her throat, nip at her collarbone. Her hand tangles in his black hair, yanking it back; he tightens his hold on her hips in instinctive response, drawing a startled noise from the hunt-goddess. Then her lips are back on his, mouth nimble, soft, drawing him in. This is nothing like Megaera. Artemis’ body presses tight against him, tight as ivy on the treetrunk, soft skin and coiled muscle. As if she needs to feel all of him on her, to mold herself against his form. 

“Wait,” he says. “Wait, Artemis, _gods_ —”

“Don’t _call_ them,” Artemis hisses in his ears. “What are you, crazy? Come _on_ —”

From outside, the echo of laughter and clinking glasses. Zagreus is losing his grip on her thighs. Laughing, he adjusts, hauls her back up again and lunges away from the wall, toward the bed. He’s atop her as they come down on the purple covers. But Artemis does _something_ with her legs and suddenly she’s astride his chest, staring down at him, intent, the fur of her stole ruffled, her breath pluming in the cool air. Her eyes are locked onto his, wide and deep and very, very green. She darts down, falcon-swift, planting kisses on his mouth. 

“Well,” Zagreus says. “You caught me. Capital hunting, there.” 

“Shut up.” But there’s laughter in her voice. Her thighs bracket his chest. He captures her lips again, his hands roaming, his fingers up beneath that short hunting tunic, grazing her hips. She whines into the kiss, vibrating on his lap. Green ringlets sway in front of her eyes. His other hand traces her shoulder under the stole, tracing the muscle—whipcord muscle, bow muscle—and then his lip is between her sharp teeth, her breath hot against his mouth. His hand is on her naked hip, the warm godflesh of her lower back, the swell of her ass. He marvels to feel it, to feel her. He marvels at her presence. 

“Zag—Zagreus—” Her hands are scrabbling at her stole, and she casts it off, throwing it to the floor. She leans down again, biting his chest, and now his hand is up her tunic, oh _gods_ , her small breast in his hand, the nipple hard against his palm. His other hand squeezes her ass and Artemis groans, pushing her chest down against his grasp. Her hips give a little jerk against his chest. And then she’s pulling the tunic off as he sits up, cursing softly as she tries to get the garment over her head, the fabric snagging on the antlers, her voice catching in her throat as his tongue circles her nipple. Finally she throws the thing off and pulls his head tighter to her breast. 

Outside, the feast is still going on. The lyre music is floating into his bedroom, the sweet, sad songs of Orpheus, the rumble of god-voices like a base note to the world. They’re right outside, his extended family, just a door or two away. But Artemis is here, now. Her hips are jerking against his lap, riding him over his pants, the purr back in her throat. He’s desperately hard. She’s wet when he reaches down, his fingers slipping through her soaked curls and between her lips, and then she’s bucking on his hand. She bites her lip, her face screwed up, the blush burning like fire in her cheeks. “Wait,” she whispers. “Zagreus, wait, a little to the—to the left. Harder. Zagreus, harder—no, no, ease up—there. Yes. There. Yesssss. Oh, _fuck._ ” 

She shudders as she cums, burying her teeth in his shoulder, following it up with a trail of kisses up his neck, a liquid hot embrace. Her hand is fumbling slowly at his belt. Her fingers find the outline of his cock and squeeze it, a little awkwardly. He grunts, mouthing at her throat. “That feels nice...” 

“Erm… Zagreus. About that.” 

“Yes?”

Her hair is a tousled mess, her pupils enormous and black in the torchlight. The silver moon on her forehead is shining, and her nipples are pointed and pink. He leans his head down to kiss them, and she smacks the back of his head. But only for a moment. Then her fingers are twined back in his hair as she holds his head in place, her eyes closed. “Mmm. Ok, Zagreus, seriously… listen.”  
  
“Hmm?” 

“I can’t fuck you.” 

He kisses her nipple again, to give himself time to to think. Then he pulls back, nuzzles her cheek, and waits. “Alright. Can I ask why?”

“Look.” Artemis hips move a little on his, rocking back and forth almost unconsciously. Her cheeks and chest are flushed. “I, um. I’m the virgin goddess. I swore to be—hhhh. I swore, as a girl. Eternal virginity. Do you understand? I can’t— I can’t _not_ be the virgin goddess. It’s not in my—fuck. My nature.” 

“I trust you when it comes to nature,” Zagreus says. “So. You’re like Athena?”

Artemis grinds her hips down a bit more. “N-no. No. Athena isn’t—interested. I am. Zagreus, I’m _really_ interested. But I can’t. Whether I want it or not. Whether it’s secret, or—ahhh. Secret or not. It can’t happen.” 

“Well,” Zagreus says slowly, and bumps his hips up against hers, only to be met by an answering murmur of pleasure. Artemis’ eyes flutter. “I’ll confess to being… a little confused?”

“Virginity is—a technical subject.” The flush is down to her nipples. She’s sopping now, the heat of her pulsing into his lap. “Can you put your hand back… therrrre. Zagreus. I like you a lot. I don’t… do this with men. Usually. And this is why. Because some things are off limits. Do you understand me, Zagreus? You can kiss my entire body, and gods, Zagreus, I hope you will, I hope we twine around in this bed for as long as we can. But that’s as far as it goes.” 

She’s looking at him now, a spark of worry in her eyes, biting her lip. He traces a finger along her jaw, wiping a strand of sweat-soaked hair out of her eyes. 

“Artemis,” he says, and kisses her softly on the lips. “If that’s all, then that’s more than enough.” 

Artemis quirks her lip at him uncertainly. “You sure?” 

“I’m sure.” 

A grin flashes across her face. “Good. Now. There’s this thing Callisto does with her mouth. I’d love to see you try it—fuck!”

Zagreus looks around, suddenly alarmed. “What?” 

“You’ve got a poster of Aphrodite on your wall?” 

“It’s old! I hardly look at it!” 

She shakes her head. “Come on, Zagreus. I thought you had better taste. Although—” 

“Although?”

“She’ll be so angry when she learns that I was here,” Artemis says, and leans down to nibble Zagreus’ ear. “And that she wasn’t.”

“She did give me a bit of advice where you were concerned.” Zagreus pushes the hunt-goddess up on her haunches, working himself down until her thighs are around his shoulders. The blankets tangle around his legs. Artemis looks down at him from between her breasts and smooth, hard belly, her fingers toying with his curls, her eyes glinting in the moonlight from her chest, silver sparks beneath a green waterfall of hair. 

“Really,” she says. “Is that right?” 

He can smell her now, a strong, earthy scent, mouth-watering. “She told me...not to make any sudden movements.”

“That—” Artemis swallows the words as Zagreus’ lips touch her. “Then...um… what are you doing…now?”

“Moving slow.” He tastes her, slowly. She’s hot on his tongue, and at the first touch of it on her clit she tightens her hands on his head, crushing herself against his mouth. Her gasp is husky, for a moment almost as husky as Megaera’s. “Well? How’s it working?”  
  
“It’s working, Zagreus,” she whispers. “It’s working.”

 _  
__  
__*_

They do twine in bed together, her and Zagreus, sometimes wrestling, hard body against hard body, and sometimes melted together, lips locked in slow, easy kisses, the sort that send arrows of white hot heat straight to Artemis’ core. He puts his mouth on her three times, taking direction well, and carrying her twice over the edge, the warmth inside her flooding and contracting in waves until she gasps and cums. He holds her as she shivers, her knuckles white, swallowing her moans with his mouth. All the while she finds herself touching his chest, his arms, his stomach, assuring herself of his solidity, his presence. 

It is a wild, out of control feeling, being in Zagreus’ arms; like feasting at the end of a long hunt, tearing into hot meat with her teeth, feeling the flood of warm grease and blood down her throat. It is a wild feeling, and she is a wild goddess. The hunt-goddess’ hands do not shake, except when she is gasping into Zagreus’ blankets, her arm thrown over her face, her breasts heaving. Then—sometimes. 

She finishes him with her mouth and hands, listening to him moan into a clenched fist, her own knees quivering as he cums. Then she wipes them both off with one of the sheets, shrugs back into her tunic, and re-fastens the stole around her shoulders. There’s a languor to her movements now, slow and easy, like a well-fed lioness. 

Zagreus is watching her dress from the bed, his mismatched eyes heavy-lidded. “My lady,” he says, meeting her gaze. 

“Prince, ah, Zagreus,” she says. For a moment she feels awkward, but then she darts back up onto the bed and kisses him. Their lips fit together like the most natural thing in the world. “Zagreus,” she mutters into his mouth, and kisses him again, long and searching, committing it to memory. “ _Zagreus._ ” 

“Artemis,” he whispers back. He tilts his forehead down to meet hers. Then he kisses her cheek and rises from the bed. “Come on, cousin. Let’s go back out there. Hopefully we’ve not been missed.” 

She nods. Together, hand in hand, they slip out of Zagreus’ room, and into the House of Hades.

_*_

“Well, Zag? How was it?” 

Zagreus pauses, walking into the vault of the Tartarus Gate. He was expecting to see all three of the Fury Sisters arrayed against him, but Megaera alone is standing there today, blue marbled skin beneath a royal blue chiton. She’s studying him, her eyes cold and clear as grey ice. 

“It was nice,” he says. “Went about as far as it could, under the circumstances. But, you know. Here I am.” 

“Here you are,” she agrees. She smiles at him wryly, and walks over, slow, keeping the whip down by her waist. Her fingers probe in his pocket, her eyes on his, until she withdraws a small keepsake. She opens her hand and looks at it, brows rising; her little skull medallion, pulsing with eldritch power. “Oh,” she says, glancing back up at him, and he sees the genuine surprise her face before the wall of her composure slams back down. “That’s...unexpected, Zag.”

“It shouldn’t be.” He takes her hand in his. “I...uh...don’t quite know how to say this. And we’re about to try and kill each other anyway, so I guess I’ll say it straight out. I do love Artemis, and it was...wonderful to meet her. But she has her nymphs and her life, up there under the clouds. She can’t stay, and there’s only so much you can build something with someone who can’t stay. And when you get down to it—” his fingers squeeze hers. “I love you. I want to keep building with you. And I can’t think of anyone I’d rather murder and/or be murdered by. Does that make sense?” 

She chuckles, her cool fingers touching his face. “On anybody else, no. On us...maybe. I don’t think I begrudge the goddess of the hunt a bit of time with you, now and again. And the fact that you came today wearing this? That means a lot. We’ll work something out.” 

Zagreus catches her hand in his and kisses it. “Yes.”

“Alright.” Megaera pads back to the center of the vast and vaulted hall and cracks her knuckles. Her whip snaps out, slashing through the air. The torches burn low on the sconces; the great statues of the Furies seem to shudder and writhe like serpents in the black shadows of the pillars. “Now, Zagreus. Time for you to go home the easy way.”

“Meg, you know it’ll be hard.” 

“Oh? Come, then.”

Zagreus grins. “My lady.” 

_*_

Artemis spends the days since the party away from the mountain, away even from most of the nymphs. She’s crept along the rocky forests, tracking mice in the grass, tracking birds in the clouds, her quiver bumping against her legs, bow on her shoulder. The air in Thessaly is clear and cool on her bare legs. She loses herself to the movement of muscle and sinew, her head clear, unthinking, flowing from step to step like the moonlight. 

There has been no call from Zagreus. She’s left him a few messages, a few scraps of power, and he’s accepted many of them, sending little warm blushes into her heart. But that’s all. It’s fine by her—she’s needed the time to clear her head. She spent last night curled up under a fallen tree with Callisto, talking about the party and making love; the nymph understands, she thinks, or understands as well as Artemis herself. Which is to say, not much. But she’s the hunt-goddess, the wilderness goddess—its the nature of her subjects to come together and split apart with the seasons. And one day, when the mood strikes her, perhaps she’ll drop him a more personal message than usual. Until then, he’s…something to her, certainly. A cousin, a friend, a lover. And something distant is still something real. 

It’s early morning when she feels it; the little pinprick awareness of him that comes when he picks up her keepsake. She sits up beside Callisto and kisses the nymph’s forehead, shrugs on her tunic, and picks up her bow.  
  
“Alright, Zagreus,” she says into the cool air, beneath a belt of stars. “Let’s go hunting.” 

She nocks an arrow and is off, her steps soundless in the forest, waiting for his call. 

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first time writing fan fiction, and my first time writing smut. I sat down to jot some notes one morning and before I knew it I'd written over 7,000 words, so I suppose I had a lot to say about these two crazy kids. This is a fun kind of writing, it turns out! I'll probably do more. 
> 
> A word about virginity, as conceptualized in this story. Artemis quite famously is a virgin goddess, but unlike her fellow Olympian virgins Athena and Hestia, she's also a goddess of fertility, wilderness, and childbirth. That--plus the fact that her videogame incarnation is *clearly* queer--suggests a more sensual side. (Much love to those who read her as Ace, of course. She just doesn't strike me that way.) But gods are archetypal creatures, and are built on tautologies: it is Artemis' mythic nature to be a virgin, meaning that she literally cannot be otherwise. Quite what that means--and what counts as virginity beyond the most classical option--is up to the reader, though I think it's fair to suggest that anal sex is a bit much for the first date. 
> 
> (Incidentally: A friend who beta'd this story suggested that Artemis must always remain purely Artemis, able to give and receive pleasure but allowing no other person to enter her body, which is a nice contrast to the much more penetrative--in all senses of the word--relationship between Zagreus and Megaera. This strikes me as a very smart read.)
> 
> A few other notes in no particular order. Artemis makes a few references to Orion, her old hunting partner and prospective lover, who was killed by a giant scorpion sent by jealous Apollo. It makes sense to me that Zagreus would remind her of him--and the fact that he's out of Apollo's reach would make him more appealing as a potential partner. And while HADES does its best to elide that classically Olympian incest, kissing cousins is positively tame by typically Olympian standards. And finally, I'm always interested by the intersection of long-distance casual relationships and more polyamorous ones, having a bit of experience in that realm myself. That might be why this particular pairing speaks to me. I hope, with this story, I've made an argument for why it can speak to you, too. 
> 
> If you've got any comments or thoughts, please do leave them. I'm very curious to hear them.


End file.
